The peptide hormone vasopressin, produced by the posterior lobe of the pituitary, mainly has two functions, that is the hormone has both an antidiuretic effect (reduced excretion of urine) and a contracting effect on smooth muscles in the vascular wall, the latter effect causing a blood pressure increase and a reduced tendency to bleeding. In clinical use, vasopressin thus has a non-specific effect of short duration.
Today, there is on the market a vasopressin analog having a prolonged effect, namely lysine-vasopressin extended in the N-terminal by three amino acid residues. This vasopressin analog acts as a so-called prohormone or hormonogen, i.e. it increases the duration of the vasopressin effect. The extended vasopressin analog has in itself a very small pharmacological effect which does not occur until the extra N-terminal amino acid residues are cleaved by enzymatic hydrolysis and free lysine-vasopressin is formed. Besides the prolonged effect, such a prohormone is advantageous in that the risk of overdosage is minimized by the limited enzyme capacity of the organism determining the plasma levels of the liberated vasopressin. In this manner, it is possible to avoid excessively high plasma levels of vasopressin possibly leading to abnormally increased blood pressure which may harm the patient. The above-mentioned vasopressin analog however suffers from major drawbacks by having low potency and, like vasopressin, being non-specific.
There is a need for vasoconstrictive substances for use as bleeding inhibitors and in so-called orthostatic hypotension, i.e. conditions of blood pressure drop following changes of body position. These agents should specifically increase blood pressure, thus having a low antidiuretic effect in order to avoid water intoxication in patients subjected to long-term treatment. Also, it is advantageous if they exhibit an effect of long duration.
Recently, we have filed (on Oct. 7, 1987) a Swedish patent application SE 8703855-0 (corresponding to PCT/SE88/00509) comprising vasotocin derivatives having specific blood pressure increasing activity. The vasotocin derivatives according to the present invention differ structurally from the vasotocin derivatives according to said prior Swedish patent application mainly in that they have a further modification at position 4 of the vasotocin structure, i.e. they have homoglutamine or homocitrulline at position 4.